The Blue Car in the Forest: Exploring Children’s Experiences of Sustainability in a Canadian Forest
An abandoned 1958 car in a forest became a year-long prompt for preschoolers and their nature teachers to explore sustainability together.
Research, reports and guidance on education outside the classroom and outdoor education, with a plain-English summary of each and a link to the original. New items are added every week.
The library began with Education Outside the Classroom: Applied Research Readings 2010–2017(McNatty & Boyes, University of Otago, 2017). Later items were found, summarised and checked with AI assistance using the same method: every reference is checked against the publisher's record, every summary against the published abstract, and only items rated high confidence by two independent relevance checks are published. Summaries are a guide: read the original before citing it.
Research library
57 items
Becoming-place: a rhizomatic exploration of friluftsliv in the Swedish school curriculum
The author argues that school-based friluftsliv in Sweden's PE and health curriculum is dominated by a conservative, activity-based approach that is out of step with global issues such as climate change.
What Went Well? Understanding the Culture of a Long-Term Israeli Environmental Education Primary School Program
A school's environmental education programme has lasted almost two decades thanks to five linked features: leadership and vision, resources, nature connection, community engagement, and tradition.
Nature Education for Sustainable Todays and Tomorrows (NEST): Hatching a New Culture in Schooling
Teachers and a researcher describe working against the constraints of a North American public school system to build a nature-based schooling culture, and what it took to keep going.
Wild Pedagogies: Six Initial Touchstones for Early Childhood Environmental Educators
Six 'touchstones' for wild pedagogies give early childhood environmental educators a way to think about nature as a co-teacher and about letting go of control.
Birds in the playground: Evaluating the effectiveness of an urban environmental education project in enhancing school children’s awareness, knowledge and attitudes towards local wildlife
After a six-week bird-feeding and monitoring project in school grounds, primary children showed gains in knowledge of local birds and in attitudes towards them. The largest gains were for children with little prior nature experience.
Pre-Service Early Childhood Teachers’ Preparedness to Teach Education for Sustainability
The abstract gives background on Education for Sustainability in early childhood and points to teacher education as one way to address it. It does not state the study's aim, method or findings.
Bridging Natural and Digital Domains: Attitudes, Confidence, and Interest in Using Technology to Learn Outdoors
Underserved students in a technology-integrated environmental education programme reported more confidence and knowledge in using technology outdoors.
Leave More Trace
This paper argues that Leave No Trace can encourage a sense of separation from nature and suggests encouraging people to 'leave more trace' or 'consider their trace' instead.
A Collaborative Community Education Model: Developing Effective School-Community Partnerships
An 18-month pilot in Taupō led to a Collaborative Community Education Model that may serve as a starting point for creating or modifying school-community partnerships.
A Sea Country Learning Partnership in Times of Anthropocenic Risk: Offshore Coral Reef Education and Our Story of Practice
A partnership between a reef tourism operator, schools, a university and Indigenous rangers took learners to the outer Great Barrier Reef to connect with Sea Country.
Impact of Environmental Education on Beginning Preservice Teachers’ Environmental Literacy
A compulsory environmental education paper barely shifted preservice teachers' environmental literacy, but it significantly increased their confidence to teach environmental education.
Field trips to natural environments: how outdoor educators use the physical environment
Outdoor educators on field trips often pointed out scientific concepts but rarely worked on values and attitudes; structured active learning stood out as contributing to a variety of outcomes.
Place-based curriculum making: devising a synthesis between primary geography and outdoor learning
The article argues for blending place, space and sustainability in primary geography and outdoor learning.
In and out of place: exploring the discursive effects of teachers' talk about outdoor education in secondary schools in New Zealand
Interviews with eight NZ secondary outdoor education teachers show adventure and learning discourses sit side by side in how they talk.
Tenuous affair: Environmental and outdoor education in Aotearoa New Zealand
The authors look at education for sustainability within outdoor education and how meaning is, and can be, given to outdoor experiences.
Students' experiences with/in integrated Environmental Studies Programs in Ontario
Canadian students in interdisciplinary environmental studies programmes changed their environmental attitudes and behaviours.
Empathy and critical thinking: primary students solving local environmental problems through outdoor learning
The study explores outcomes of teaching primary children empathy and critical thinking to solve environmental problems.
Critical thinking assessment across four sustainability-related experiential learning settings
The project examined critical thinking in four experiential sustainability courses and discusses a conceptual model of integrated planning, design, content and scaffolded application.
Convergence between science and environmental education
A brief article examines how science and environmental education could converge to address socio-ecological challenges.
Fostering environmental action through outdoor education
The study looks at students' environmental actions and how they approach, internalise and express their own learning.
Entering the fray: The role of outdoor education in providing nature-based experiences that matter
The article explores how first-hand nature experiences can connect learners to sustainability concepts and what that means for outdoor education.
Outdoor investigations to connect water to you
A maths and science programme used the outdoors to teach about local water quality issues, with links to free resources.
Intersections between place, sustainability and transformative outdoor experiences
Drawing on teachers' perspectives, the authors suggest a sustainability framework could help place-responsive educators improve human-nature relations.